Interrupting Your Regular Professor
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Randall talks Layton into letting him cover his class at the university and meets his match in Rosetta.


**Notes:** Written for kinkmeme prompt that wanted Randall covering Layton's class. Set sometime post-PL3, with some spoilers for Miracle Mask.

* * *

"Come on Hershel, it'll be fun!"

"It's not a matter of me wanting to prevent you from enjoying yourself, Randall. It's just that I don't think that I'm legally allowed to let you cover my class," Layton explained, trying to let his friend down as gently as possible, "You need qualifications to become a professor and you need to be a professor to teach archaeology at university level."

Randall sighed audibly; "But we both know that I'm really good at it."

"Indeed, I do not doubt your skills in the field, but teaching-"

"And you really do need to spend more time with your daughter," Randall cut in, making a point of talking louder than Layton was.

"Yes," agreed Layton. He was definitely regretting even mentioning in passing to Randall that he would like to be there for Flora more than he was right now.

"Well then, it's a win-win situation," Randall concluded, "You take the day off to have some family bonding time and I live the dream of educating the next generation of budding young archaeologists."

"Have you been listening to anything that I've said? I can't let you cover my class because you're not qualified," argued Layton.

"Dean Delmona seemed okay with it."

"What?"

"Him and I had a little chat this morning. He was really quite fascinated to know that I taught the great Professor Layton almost everything that he knows about archaeology. And I helped him solve a few puzzles that his grandkids gave him, which seemed to put me in his good books," Randall explained.

"So let me get this straight," checked Layton, frowning visibly, "You went over my head, spoke to my employer and got him to approve this?"

Randall grinned widely; "Pretty much, yeah."

"Then why did you bother even having this conversation with me?" he enquired.

"Because it wouldn't be fair to just waltz in and take over without letting you know about it. And it's just for one day. Please Hershel, I've always wanted to do this!" Randall begged, leaning a little too close. A habit of his that had always unnerved Layton.

When he was younger, Layton often let Randall get his own way because he was a pushover who liked to avoid confrontation. As the years went on and he was forced to adjust to life without Randall, Layton liked to believe that he'd grown to become someone who didn't let himself get bossed around by others as much as he used to. But at the same time, when it came to Randall, agreeing with him usually ended up leading to an easy life.

So basically, nothing had really changed, even if he liked to pretend that it had.

"Very well, I suppose that if the Dean has permitted it I see no reason to object," he concluded.

"Thanks, Hershel! You won't regret this!" Randall cheered.

"I sincerely hope not," replied Layton.

"Don't be such a worrywart! Now go spend some time with Flora while I spice up your class a little," Randall said, practically pushing him out of the door.

"All right, I'm going. But just so you're aware, you should probably watch out for-"

"Don't spoil the surprise, Hershel. If there are any problem students I'd rather discover them on my own," Randall answered.

Quietly, Layton decided that it was best just to let him get on with it.

Although it certainly might have been helpful to Randall if he'd been given some advice about how to handle one of the more troublesome members of Layton's class. The others were generally accepting of this new supply teacher, albeit a little confused by his sudden appearance, Rosetta wasn't prepared to cut him any slack.

"Right, so now that we've established that I'm going to be covering for Professor Layton today, I'd like to draw your attention to the diagram on the board-"

"I've never seen you around the university before."

Randall scanned his eyes across the wave of students, until he spotted the one who'd spoke up; "I beg your pardon, Miss...?"

"Stone, Rosetta Stone. And I was saying, I've never seen you before. Are you sure that you're even a real professor, Mr. Ascot?" Rosetta replied.

"I'm sure that I'm the person who helped Hersh- ...I mean, Professor Layton become the expert that he is today," Randall evaded.

That turned out to be the wrong thing to say.

"Mr. L. is, like, the best in the whole world. Ever. No one is better than him," Rosetta defensively replied.

"I never said that I was better than him, just that the two of us used to spend all our time-"

"Where even is he anyway? Has he gone off to solve more mysteries? He's so good at that! Also, Professor Hammond usually covers our class when he's not here, so why-"

"Miss Stone, it is rude to interrupt someone when they're talking," warned Randall.

"But you just did it yourself!" she protested.

"Only because you were asking questions that aren't your business to ask. What Layton does in his free time and who covers his class is none of yo-"

"Now that I think about it, you totally come across as the sort of person who interrupts people when they're talking all of the time," Rosetta mused loudly.

"In that case, we're in good company. Now if the next question doesn't have anything to do with archaeology then I'll have to ask you to leave," warned Randall.

The rest of the class stared at Rosetta to see if she'd take up the challenge. They'd spent the past few minutes turning their heads from Randall to Rosetta and they weren't about to pass up this chance to put off doing any actual work.

After a moment of thoughtful silence, Rosetta asked, "What exactly did you teach Mr. L. anyway? Since you think that you're so great."

"Well, I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but before I came along Hershel- ...I mean Professor Lay- ...oh forget it, Hershel, didn't really care for archaeology that much at all."

"You're lying!"

"No, I'm not. He was always very good at it, but it took me nagging him to get him to do anything about it. Maybe you've read about the Ruins of Akbadain? Well, Hershel and I were the first people to discover it's secrets," he replied.

This got a general murmur of impressed approval from the class.

Rosetta, however, was not one to be thrown so easily.

"I read that a guy called Henry Ledore discovered it," she argued.

"That's... sort of a long story," Randall admitted, looking awkward, "Hershel and I were the first ones to explore the ruins, Hershel discovered the treasure but didn't take credit for it, then Henry went there later looking for... something and ended up being the one to bring the treasure back."

"That sounds suspicious to me," Rosetta replied.

Randall answered, "It can sound however it wants, because it really doesn't have any bearing on what we're learning about today. Unless you believe there's some connection between Akbadain and the Celts. Though having said that, there are a few theories that I've come across in my time, but nothing that-"

"So after you went to the ruins, is that what convinced Mr. L. to become an archaeologist?" Rosetta cut in.

"Oh. Well... kind of. It's very personal and probably not something that he'd want me to discuss, but let's just say that he was carrying on a legacy," Randall mumbled.

"Before going on to make his own legacy as the super dreamy-"

"Miss Stone, this class is not the History of Hershel Layton!" Randall protested.

"Maybe it should be. He's way more interesting than the Celts," huffed Rosetta.

"I... can't entirely say that I disagree with you there, but I'm not here to teach you about your teacher," he debated.

"Come on! He's made loads of really important discoveries and it'd be, like, totally educational for us to get an insider's view about his work," she reasoned.

Randall had to admit to himself that he did enjoy talking about Hershel. It just wasn't very often that it was relevant for him to do so. But apparently this class, or at least, this girl, wanted him to talk about the person he enjoyed talking about the most, so...

"Very well, I suppose this is a bit of an unusual lesson anyway, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to cover a topic a bit outside of the curriculum."

His lesson seemed to pass as quickly as a British summer and before Randall knew what had happened, he was dismissing the students with a pleasant smile. Only to then find himself face-to-face with Layton again.

"Hershel? I thought you were spending time with Flora," he commented.

"I was, but I stop myself from checking up on how you were doing," Layton admitted, "One of my students is... rather fond of me and I've known her to tear into supply teachers at time because of that."

"You mean Rosetta? Yeah, she did seem to come across like that. Kind of rude and can't wait for her turn to talk," agreed Randall, "But we found a common ground to talk about."

"And what was that?" asked Layton.

"Mr. L.! Glad to see you're okay," Rosetta chimed, rushing over from where she'd been packing her books away.

"A-ah, Miss Stone. It's, um, a pleasure to see you," replied Layton, all but backing away.

"Yeah, well, just so you know, if you ever go off work again you should totally let Mr. A. cover your class. He's way more interesting than boring old Hammond and I feel like I've learned a lot today," Rosetta said, "Well, I've got to go. Catch you later!"

She gave him a cheeky wink, before heading off to catch up with some of the other students.

Layton blinked, his face showing nothing but an expression of total confusion.

"Randall, I have no idea what you said to make her warm to you, but you have my respect for pulling it off," he admitted.

"What can I say? I'm just that good," Randall dodged, chuckling at a joke he wasn't going to explain to his friend.

If teaching Layton's class meant an hour of talking to a group of people about how amazing Layton was, then Randall felt that he'd definitely be glad to cover lessons a bit more frequently.


End file.
